Semiconductors, or computer chips, are found in virtually every electrical product manufactured today. Chips are used not only in very sophisticated industrial and commercial electronic equipment, but also in many household and consumer items such as televisions, clothes washers and dryers, radios, and telephones. As products become smaller but more functional, there is a need to include more chips in the smaller products to perform the functionality. The reduction in size of cellular telephones is one example of how more and more capabilities are incorporated into smaller and smaller electronic products.
As the demand for semiconductor devices with low-cost, high performance, increased miniaturization, and greater packaging densities has increased, Multi-Chip Module (MCM) structures have been developed to meet the demand. MCM structures have a number of dies and other semiconductor components mounted within a single semiconductor package. The number of dies and other components can be mounted in a vertical manner, a lateral manner, or combinations thereof.
One such approach is to stack one die on top of another and then enclose the stack of dies in one package. The final package for a semiconductor with stacked dies is much smaller than would result if the dies were each packaged separately. In addition to providing a smaller size, stacked-die packages offer a number of advantages that relate to the manufacturing of the package, such as ease of handling and assembly.
In a stacked-die arrangement, the dies are wire-bonded sequentially, typically with automated wire-bonding equipment employing well-known thermal compression or ultrasonic wire-bonding techniques. During the wire-bonding process, the head of a wire-bonding apparatus applies a downward pressure on a conductive wire held in contact with a wire-bonding pad on the die to weld, or bond, the wire to the bonding pad on the die.
In many cases, stacked-die semiconductors can be fabricated faster and more cheaply than several semiconductors, each having a single die, which perform the same functions. A stacked-die approach is advantageous because of the increase in circuit density achieved.
A variety of semiconductor package configurations having stacked die arrangements are found in the art. However, the configurations currently known could stand to benefit from additional flexibility of implementing subcomponents such as integrated circuits (ICs) and integrated passive devices (IPDs) which can include resistors, capacitors, inductors, filters, and BALUNs. Accordingly, a need exists for a semiconductor package with such increased functionality. Additionally, a need exists for a semiconductor package which promotes higher performance while providing lower cost and a smaller footprint.